


Behind Blue Eyes

by thegirlwhoknits



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Avengers references, De-Aged Peter, Gen, I Made Myself Cry, Kira because I like her okay?, M/M, Peter being adorable and creepy, kid!Peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 03:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1414165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwhoknits/pseuds/thegirlwhoknits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, this was supposed to be a simple, fun de-aged Peter fic for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/nezstorm/pseuds/nezstorm">Mar</a>, and instead it turned out to be almost 5k of unexpected feels.  Enjoy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Behind Blue Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nezstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezstorm/gifts).



> Beautiful cover art provided by [notmissmarple](http://notmissmarple.tumblr.com/)!

 

  

“I mean, obviously Allison is Hawkeye because of the archery, even though she’s _way_ more mature than Clint, and you’re clearly Captain America,” Stiles paused for breath as Scott beamed at him, then resumed casting members of the Pack as Avengers while they climbed the _endless_ stairs to Peter’s apartment.  “I haven’t decided whether Derek is the Hulk or Nick Fury—because, black leather and perpetual scowl much?—but Peter’s definitely Loki.”  He stopped talking when Scott paused on the landing, tilting his head and holding up a finger.

“Someone’s crying,” he said curiously. “It sounds like a kid.”

“On this floor?” Stiles asked, and Scott nodded. “Nobody has kids on this floor, not since Ms. Hyatt moved out two weeks ago.  Mrs. Trimble has grandkids, but they only visit on the weekends.”

Scott shot him a raised eyebrow that clearly said, _Exactly how much time do you spend here?_

Stiles flushed.  They continued down the hall without resuming their conversation, Scott listening intently, until they came up to Peter’s door.

“It’s coming from Peter’s apartment,” Scott said. “And it’s definitely a kid.”

“Oh my _god,_ please tell me Peter didn’t kidnap someone’s kid.  I know we tease him about being a creeper, but I never pegged him for an actual pedophile!”

Scott took a deep breath.  “I don’t know? I don’t smell anyone unfamiliar; maybe it’s a relative they haven’t told us about?”

“I’m pretty sure Peter doesn’t have any kids other than Malia, and he would’ve told me if he had family coming to town, but I guess it could have been a surprise. The Hales don’t seem great at communication, in general,” Stiles said doubtfully.

Scott gestured at the door, and Stiles knocked.  The crying subsided into a series of loud hiccups and sniffles, but no one answered.

“Hang on, I have a key.” Stiles fished his key ring out of his pocket and moved to unlock the door, but Scott grabbed it out of his hand.  His best friend examined the key’s worn edge thoughtfully, and gave him a meaningful look as he handed it back.

“Okay, but seriously, man, we need to have a talk about how much time you’re spending with Peter. Not a bad talk!” He held up a hand to stave off Stiles’ protests. “I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Stiles argued, unlocking the door.  Scott huffed out a disbelieving noise.

They moved carefully through the apartment, looking for the source of the noise, which had now died down to a quiet snuffling.  Finally, opening the door to the bathroom, they were greeted with the sight of a tear-streaked six-year-old boy, sitting stark naked on the bathroom mat.  He looked up at them with vivid blue eyes, momentary confusion blossoming into sudden recognition.

“Stiles!” he shouted, and flung himself into the startled teenager’s arms.

 

“It’s definitely Peter,” Derek confirmed after carefully inspecting the small boy who’d passed out, exhausted, in Stiles’ arms.  “How the hell did he get this way?”

“I have no idea,” Stiles said, shifting mini-Peter in his arms to lie back against the couch’s armrest.  “We came over to talk to him about some issues with the treaty contract with the Wilson Pack, and he was like this.”

“I think I might know.” Scott came into the living room with a large book and a smirk.  “I found this in the kitchen, along with some mashed-up herbs.” 

He held out the open book to Stiles, who skimmed over it and then groaned. “Oh my god, Peter, you are beyond ridiculous,” he told the sleeping boy.

“Is someone going to explain this to me?” Derek said gruffly.

“So I _might_ have been teasing Peter a little lately about being a wrinkly old man,” Stiles admitted sheepishly. “And it looks like he took it seriously enough to try an anti-aging spell, which clearly turned out a little stronger than he expected.”

“Seriously?” Derek said. “I didn’t think even Peter was vain enough to resort to de-aging spells.”

“He’s interested in Stiles,” Scott blurted out.  “And he’s afraid he’ll think he’s too old to be his mate.”

“WHAT?!?” Derek and Stiles said at the same time, turning identical shocked looks on their Alpha.

“Dude, there’s no way Peter’s into me like that. He barely tolerates me, on a good day,” Stiles scoffed.

“You’re the only one of us who has a key to his apartment,” Scott pointed out.

“That’s only because Derek made him give me one so I could get to his research materials in an emergency…” He trailed off as Derek rubbed the back of his neck, looking embarrassed.

“Actually, that was Peter’s idea,” he admitted. “He figured you’d think it was a trap if he suggested it.”

“And when you and I had that big fight over lending aid to the Clement Pack? Peter came to me and told me how you’d been studying inter-pack politics and that I’d be an idiot not to listen to you,” Scott said. “Actually, he might have put it a little more…persuasively.”

Stiles stared down at the sleeping boy in his arms incredulously. Then he shook his head. “Okay, so maybe we’re, I dunno, friends? But there’s no way he’s interested in _mating_ with me.” He flushed.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, bro. But Stiles? If you’re not interested, you should let him know when he’s, you know, better. Mating courtships are a pretty serious thing for werewolves.”

“Speaking of which, how exactly are we going to make him better? Let me see that spell again.” He tried to lay Peter on the other half of the couch, but as soon as he moved the boy away from him Peter whimpered in his sleep and grabbed for Stiles’ shirt.  Stiles was finally able to compromise by settling the young werewolf against his side and wrapping an arm around him while he read through the spell more carefully.

“Well, it doesn’t look like it’ll be too hard to reverse, if we have all the ingredients, but to be honest I don’t know what half of these things are.  Scott, can you check and see if Peter has any more of the stuff you saw on the table?”

Derek and Stiles sat in silence while Scott rooted through the kitchen, Stiles absentmindedly stroking Peter’s hair as he continued reading.  The Alpha emerged a few minutes later holding two empty glass containers.  “I found most of them, but these two were empty.  We should check with Deaton and see if he has any in his supplies.”

Stiles begged to go with them, but Scott pointed out that someone needed to stay with Peter, and they didn’t have a car seat.

“But I know more about magic and herbs and stuff!” he whined.

“Yeah, but Peter seems pretty attached to you,” Derek said, and they ducked out the door before he could argue more.

He looked down at where mini-Peter still lay pressed against his side, clutching a handful of Stiles’ t-shirt and sucking his thumb.  They’d dressed the boy in the smallest shirt they could find, but he still swam in it. It made him look slightly pathetic, in a cute way.  Deciding he wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon, Stiles scooped him up gently and carried him to the bedroom.

“I guess a nap sounds like a pretty good idea,” he whispered, and curled up with Peter under the blankets.

 

He was awakened by a tiny claw poking him repeatedly in the ribs. A pair of electric-blue eyes stared at him, inches from his face. He yelped and flailed ungracefully off the bed.  Peter’s small face peeked over the edge.  “Stiles, I’m hungry,” he said plaintively.

“Yeah, okay.” Stiles hauled himself up off the floor. “Let’s see what Big Peter keeps his kitchen stocked with.”

As it turned out, Big Peter and mini-Peter had very different opinions about what was edible. Stiles finally managed to find a loaf of whole-wheat bread and some cheese (possibly Gouda?) and set about making a stack of grilled cheese sandwiches.  Peter attacked them like he hadn’t eaten in a week. Stiles munched on his at a more sedate pace while he checked the messages on his phone.

Scott: _Deaton missing 1 ingredient. Says it will take about 2 days to get._

Scott: _Derek bringing food 4 dinner. Txt me if u need anything b4 then._

Stiles sighed, and texted him a short list of Peter-approved foods.  Dinnertime was still several hours away, and Peter’s apartment didn’t look like the most kid-friendly place. What was he going to do with a tiny werewolf until five o’clock?  There was a playground at the end of the block, but he wasn’t sure how well a six-year-old werewolf could control his shift. He definitely didn’t want to be responsible for Peter mauling a bunch of little kids.

He dashed off a question to Derek, and his phone beeped a few minutes later.

Derek: _Born werewolves can control their shifts by the time they’re 3. He should only shift unintentionally if he’s in danger or seriously hurt._

A knock at the door startled him and Stiles almost fell out of his seat.  Peter continued chewing unconcernedly while he went to answer the door.  Kira stood in the hallway, looking cheerful as ever, a Walmart bag in each hand. “Hey! Scott told me what happened, and I figured you might need some basics until the guys get here later with food and stuff.”

She offered him a bag, and he peeked inside to see a few pairs of kid-sized jeans and shorts, some underwear, and a pair of Spider-Man pjs.  The other bag held shirts, a zip-up hoodie, and some sneakers and socks.  “I got some coloring books, too,” she said, rummaging around in a third bag. “And some crayons.”  She pulled them out triumphantly.

“Avengers and Wall-E, sweet!” He took everything and plopped in on the sofa.  “I was just wondering what to do with him, so you’ve got perfect timing.”

Kira waved at Peter, who was nearly finished with his mound of sandwiches.  He blinked at her and continued chewing.

Stiles started taking everything out of the bags, pulling off tags and laying the clothes over the back of the couch. “I think I’m gonna take him to the park, actually.”

“Oooh, can I go with you?” Kira asked, excited. “He’s such a cute little guy; I can’t wait to see what a young Peter is like.”

 

Taking Peter to the playground turned out to be alarming for totally different reasons than Stiles had imagined.  Peter not only kept perfect control of his shift, within ten minutes he had also taken control of the playground.  All the kids had amassed under his direction, playing a game that looked suspiciously like one of the tactics lessons adult Peter drilled them in during training.

“It’s like he’s building his own little toddler army,” Stiles said, awed.

The adults were apparently susceptible to his charms, too. Three separate mothers had complimented Stiles on what a charming little brother he had (thank _God_ he didn’t look old enough to be Peter’s dad), and asked for his parents’ phone number to set up playdates.  Feeling vindictive, Stiles gave them Derek’s.

He thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head when Peter led another boy’s mother up to him by the hand, the picture of perfect innocence.  “Is this your brother?” she asked Peter.

Mini-Peter gave her a look that Stiles knew all too well on adult Peter’s face. It said, _I think you’re a complete idiot, but I’m entirely too well-bred to say so._   “This is my _Stiles,_ ” he told the women firmly.

“Stiles. Is my name,” he offered, holding out his hand.  The mother was apparently too enchanted by Peter’s wide blue eyes to notice, and he let it drop.

“Is Peter allergic to peanuts?  Michael wanted to share his snacks, but I think they have peanut oil in them,” she explained.

“No, he’s not allergic, he can have whatever,” Stiles assured her. As far as he knew the only allergies Peter had were to wolfsbane, mistletoe, and the full spectrum of human emotion.  Not that you’d be able to tell that last by the way he was positively _beaming_ at Michael’s mom.  He led her away again without so much as a backward glance.

“That is…really creepy,” Kira said, looking lightly stunned.  “I think six-year-old Peter might actually be even creepier than the full-grown version.”

Stiles nodded numbly in agreement.

 

By the time they got back to the apartment, Stiles had a working theory that mini-Peter had some kind of weird werewolf mind-control going on.  He wasn’t immune to it, either—watching Peter wrap his tiny hand around Kira’s finger and tug her up the sidewalk, Stiles felt like the werewolf was tugging on his heart as well.

For all that mini-Peter was obviously as manipulative as his adult self, there was something so much more open and vulnerable about him.  The shell that had hardened around him after the fire had been stripped away, and sprinkled liberally among the smirks and eyerolls were huge, happy smiles and genuine laughter.  Stiles found himself thinking he’d do anything to make the adult Peter laugh like that.

 

Derek and Scott showed up just as Stiles was toweling Peter off from his bath. (Thankfully he was an independent kid who insisted on washing himself. Stiles didn’t fancy losing his fingers when the werewolf came back to his full senses.)  He dressed the boy in the Spider-Man pjs Kira had bought, and tried to herd him out of the bathroom.

Peter stood still as a stone, his wide blue eyes staring at Stiles in panic.  “Come on, Peter, dinner’s here! Scott and Derek brought pizza!”

More staring.

“Are you nervous because there are more people?” Stiles ventured.

Peter nodded.

“But you know these people! They’re Pack! And you just spent the whole afternoon with me and Kira at the playground.” Stiles couldn’t understand why the werewolf suddenly seemed so shy.

Peter’s eyes flashed blue, and he turned his gaze from Stiles to the floor.  “They don’t like me,” he said in a small voice. “I make Derek smell angry and sad.”

“Oh, Peter.” Stiles felt tears prick the back of his eyelids, and he swept the little werewolf into a crushing hug.  He’d never thought of it that way. Werewolves were pack-oriented; Derek had told Scott at the very beginning that omegas, wolves without a pack, didn’t survive very long.  And adult Peter was one short step away from omega status—no one in the Pack trusted him or liked him very much.  It must be horribly lonely. No wonder he wanted to be Alpha so badly; he must want the security of having a pack that couldn’t reject him.

“I’m right here, kiddo. I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to have pizza and watch one of the movies Kira bought for you, and then I’ll read you a story.  I’ll be with you the whole time.” Peter was clinging tightly to his shirt; Stiles could feel the pinprick of tiny claws as the boy lifted his head to look at him.

“You promise?” he said warily. “You’ll be here even when I’m sleeping?”

“I promise,” Stiles said gravely.

“And when I wake up?”

“And when you wake up.”

Peter nodded slowly and let go of Stiles’ shirt.  “Okay, let’s get pizza!!!” A big smile broke out on his face and he launched himself through the doorway.  “I want pepperoni!” he shrieked.

 

Scott and Derek stayed for the movie, although Peter kept his distance, bouncing from Stiles’ lap to Kira’s and back again.  Eventually, after he’d devoured almost an entire pizza and a quart of milk, he settled down against Stiles’ side, clutching his shirt and sucking his thumb just as he had that morning.  When the credits rolled, Kira shut off the TV and went to clean up the kitchen.

“Deaton said he should have the last ingredient by the day after tomorrow. He’ll bring them over here so you can do the spell,” Scott whispered.

Stiles nodded his understanding and waved them out of the apartment before scooping up the sleeping werewolf.  “I’m putting him to bed,” he whispered to Kira. “Just lock the door on your way out? Thanks for all your help today.”

“No problem, it was fun.” She smiled at him. “I can come back tomorrow if you want?”

“That would be great; he really seems to like you.” Kira was a godsend. As soon as all this was over, he was having a strongly-worded talk with Scott about not letting her slip through his fingers.

He tucked mini-Peter into the bed; he looked so tiny surrounded by Peter’s midnight-blue comforter and zillion-thread count sheets.  Stiles suppressed a very wolf-like urge to curl around him protectively, and instead settled for smoothing back his hair and pressing a quick, feather-light kiss to his forehead before going to settle in on the couch.

 

Three hours later, a screaming howl startled him awake and onto the floor with a loud thump. He was on Peter’s bed holding a shaking, hysterical young werewolf before his brain could even register being awake. 

“Peter, Peter, it’s okay, it was just a dream, I’m here. I’ve got you kiddo, it’s all over.”  Stiles cursed himself silently. He should have seen this coming.  The de-aging spell wouldn’t take Peter’s adult memories away; they were just buried further back in his brain, because his younger self lacked the maturity to process them. _Of course_ they would emerge while he was sleeping.

“Everything was—on _fire,_ ” Peter hiccupped through his tears. “I couldn’t find Momma or Talia _anywhere.”_ He was curled up in a tight ball, his claws digging into the sides of his knees.

“Oh Peter, I’m so sorry,” Stiles whispered into the boy’s hair. “I’m so, so sorry.  It’s all over now, kiddo, I’m here, nothing’s going to hurt you.” _Ever again,_ he thought fiercely. He deliberately didn’t think about what that would entail when Peter was an adult again.

The little boy clung to him, crying brokenly until he finally fell back to sleep.  Stiles stayed with him this time, drifting off to the sound of Peter’s quiet, snuffling breathing, the werewolf’s tiny head buried against his chest like it belonged there.

 

The next day passed in a happy blur.  Stiles made pancakes in the morning, which Peter devoured in a sticky feeding frenzy.  Stiles wiped him down and they went to color in the living room until Kira arrived.  Peter was a meticulous colorer, always staying inside the lines and searching patiently for exactly the right color crayon.  Stiles helped him print his name and “For Kira” on a picture of Black Widow.  Kira _loved_ it and promised to hang it on her wall as soon as she got home.

Stiles’ heart ached at the joyful smile Peter gave her.  She helped them clean up the kitchen—every surface seemed to be covered in a mixture of flour and syrup.  Stiles tuned the radio on the counter to an ‘oldies’ station, and Kira tried to teach them some dances from her mother’s day.  Peter shrieked with laughter when she spun him around, his bare feet lifted off the floor.

It was raining, so another trip to the park was out.  Stiles was secretly grateful; he was a little worried about Peter’s possible plans for world domination with his tiny minions.  They watched _The Avengers_ instead. Under other circumstances Stiles might worry about the violence in the movie, but it wasn’t like he was going to start picking fights at school. He was only going to be a kid for another day.

For some reason that made Stiles sad.  It was just…Peter seemed so much _happier_ as a kid.  The Pack would probably accept him better this way, and Stiles could protect him, give him a better life than the lonely, scarred one he led as an adult.

He shook his head. That was crazy. He wasn’t in any position to raise a kid, and anyway it wasn’t their decision to make. He didn’t have the right to mess with Peter’s existence like that. 

Kira grabbed the popcorn from him, and he took the opportunity to cuddle the boy a little closer.  Peter was babbling about Black Widow, who was his favorite; apparently the werewolf had been a big Marvel fan when he was little. They took turns asking him about each of the characters, prompting an adorable diatribe each time. Iron Man and the Hulk got the nod of approval; Captain America was, unsurprisingly, deemed ‘boring.’ When Stiles asked about Loki, however, Peter looked thoughtful.

“He’s different from his family, so he doesn’t think anyone will love him,” he decided finally.

“But Thor loves him!” Kira pointed out.

Peter subjected her to one of his patented Hale Family Eyerolls (although it was hard to take it quite as seriously on his six-year-old face). “Thor _wants_ to love him, but he doesn’t _get_ him.  He loves who he wants him to be.”

There was a moment of silence while they all considered this surprising piece of wisdom.  Then Kira broke the mood by flinging popcorn at them, and all deep thoughts were forgotten in the face of a full-blown food fight.

 

Peter was still awake for bedtime that night, so Stiles let him pick out a story from the pile of books Derek had brought over. “I borrowed them from Moira; I thought they might make him feel more comfortable.” Moira was the Alpha of the Clement Pack, which had approximately a dozen cubs under the age of twelve.  The books were mostly werewolf-friendly versions of traditional fairy tales, which Stiles thought was nice.

After brushing his teeth—and fangs, he insisted on shifting and brushing them separately—Peter picked out the pro-wolf _Little Red Riding Hood._ Well, in this case, ‘picked out’ translated to clamping it between his teeth and daring Stiles to wrestle it away from him.

“Hey! Books are not for chewing!” Stiles protested, before tickling him into submission.

Finally they crawled under the covers, Peter nestled in the crook of Stiles’ arm as he began to read.  In this version, the wolf was helping Little Red Riding Hood get to her grandma’s house, and the bad guy was a hunter chasing them.  Peter cheered when the wolf, pretending to be Red’s grandmother, hit the hunter over the head with her frying pan.

When the story was done, Peter looked up at him with worried blue eyes. “I don’t want to go to sleep, Stiles. What if I have bad dreams again?”

“If you have bad dreams I’ll wake you up, I promise. I’ll be here the whole time,” Stiles reassured him.

“Okay.” Peter snuggled in close to him and closed his eyes.  His breathing evened out, but just when Stiles thought he’d fallen asleep he said quietly, “Stiles?”

“Yeah, buddy?”

“I love you.”

Stiles’ eyes watered as he looked down at the sleepy werewolf curled against his chest. “I love you too, little wolf,” he whispered.

 

The second night passed without nightmares, and neither of them woke up until Stiles’ phone rang on the nightstand next to the bed.

_“Dude, are you alive in there?”_ Scott asked. _“We’ve been knocking for, like, ten minutes.”_

“Yeah, sorry, we were sleeping, hang on a sec.” He stumbled out of the bed and yanked on a t-shirt.  Peter whined a little in his sleep and wriggled over into the warm spot he left behind in the bed.

Deaton, Scott, and Derek went directly to the kitchen and started setting up ingredients on the table while Stiles made coffee.  After a few minutes, Peter padded in sleepily, turning wide eyes on Deaton and skirting around him carefully to hide behind Stiles.  Stiles smirked fondly down at him. “Yeah, I know the feeling, kiddo,” he whispered.  Derek snorted.

“What are they doing, Stiles?” Peter asked.

Oh. Right. They’d never talked to Peter about why he was suddenly six years old. Stiles sat down on the floor cross-legged, pulling Peter down with him and holding his hands.  “Listen, kiddo… The thing is…” He couldn’t think of a good way to say it.

“You’re not supposed to be six years old,” he settled on finally. “You did a spell as an adult, and it kind of went wrong.  Deaton and I are going to fix it, so you can be big again.”

“Will you still be here, when I’m big again?” Peter’s lip quivered, and Stiles was ninety-eight percent sure it wasn’t an act.

Stiles paused, looking up at Scott, who smiled encouragingly.  The events of the past couple of days flashed through his mind: Peter smiling, helping Kira tickle Stiles; Peter sad because his packmates didn’t like him; Peter pouting because Stiles wouldn’t let him have more syrup on his pancakes.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, I’ll be here when you’re big again. You’re not going to be alone anymore.”

 

They dressed Peter in one of his adult shirts before beginning the spell, with a pair of sweatpants Stiles had frankly been shocked to find draped over the back of a chair nearby.  He gave the boy one last reassuring squeeze and kissed the top of his head before beginning to chant.

Moments later, Peter was slumped back in the chair, fully grown again and looking a bit dazed.  Derek handed him the sweatpants, and Stiles could almost swear he saw the older man blush.  He pulled them on, cast a wide-eyed gaze around the assembly in his kitchen, and retreated to the bedroom, locking the door behind him.

“I guess he needs some space?” Scott ventured.

“Yeah, probably,” Stiles muttered, staring at the closed door.  He wanted to go to Peter, wrap his arms around him and reassure him again that he wasn’t alone.  But it looked like adult Peter didn’t want that.  This time Stiles was the one left feeling empty.

 

The rest of the day was eaten up by a Pack meeting.  The Wilson treaty still needed hashing out, with or without Peter’s input.  If Stiles found himself checking his phone far more frequently than was usual when he and Scott were in the same room, nobody mentioned it.  No texts from Peter. Stiles told himself he hadn’t really expected any.

It was almost midnight by the time Stiles stumbled through his front door. His dad was either working the night shift or over at Melissa’s—they’d started dating six months ago and tended to take advantage whenever their newly-adult children were out of the house.

He was too tired to even startle when he flicked on the light to find Peter sitting in the chair by his desk. “It’s nice to know you haven’t given up lurking in your old age,” he said, then winced. He was really going to have to stop with the old-man comments.

“I wanted to say thank you,” Peter said tightly, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.  “You were…very kind to me, during my predicament.”

Stiles snorted.  “That’s what we’re calling it now?” He sat on the bed and started pulling off his sneakers.  “How much do you remember?”

“All of it,” Peter said, almost too softly to hear.

Stiles’ head snapped up to look at him. “Oh.”

“Look, I know you were just saying what you had to to calm an upset child. I just wanted to let you know I appreciated the consideration.” He stood to leave, avoiding Stiles’ eyes.

“Wait!” Stiles tried to stand, tripped off the shoe he’d half-removed, and hopped around for a minute while he tried to pull it off.  Peter looked like he was fighting not to break out into one of his six-year-old self’s magical peals of laughter.

Finally Stiles managed to free himself of both shoes and lurched upright, grabbing Peter’s shoulder for support.  The werewolf froze under the touch, his eyes flashing blue as they met Stiles’.

“Peter, I…” Stiles started, his mouth suddenly dry.  “…I meant what I said. You don’t have to be alone.”

Peter’s face closed up, and he jerked away. “I don’t want your _pity,_ Stiles. I’m not six years old anymore; I can deal with my own nightmares.”

Stiles growled, frustrated. “Dammit, Peter, don’t do that!  I’m trying to tell you I fucking love you, you asshole. I _want_ to be with you.”

“What?” The werewolf looked at him like he’d suddenly started speaking archaic Latin.

“Look, Scott said you wanted to, I dunno, _court_ me or whatever. I don’t know if he was right or not, I’m just saying… If you did, I’d be okay with that.”

“You would?” Peter sounded utterly lost.  Stiles looked up at him with a small smile, and crowded into his space a little more.

“Yeah, definitely,” he said, and leaned in to give his wolf a very enthusiastic, very _adult_ kiss.


End file.
